How My Creative Life Vision Has Changed And Why ‘Slow Living’ Isn’t Part Of It
It’s almost a year since I went full-time with my creative business. It’s been a big year, beautiful, challenging, life-changing. With the decision to pursue self-employed life, so much changed and at some point during the first year, my vision started to feel a little outdated.
I could sense my inner creative direction developing, shifting, morphing. The vision for my creative work, my business, and how I wanted to live my life… it was something I had developed before I went full-time. When winter arrived and the pace of the world slowed down, I decided it was time for some introspection. I needed to check in with my creative compass.
The vision that were
For years, the Why of my creative work and my vision was a slow and creative life. It was my north star, the thing I was intrigued by, that I strived towards. I was unhappy with my 9-5 life and I longed for slow and creativity. This is what I explored for myself, and this is what my creative work was about.
Pursuing creativity in my spare time, I needed to manage my energy and build rest in with my creative time. This meant creative work and slow living became very entwined in a beautiful way. I explored both simultaneously, and I wrote about both.
It was very important that I manged to fit it all in: my own creativity, my rest, and the work I did to support other creatives. I felt very protective of my role as a creative, and not just a coach for others, to make sure I always had space for my own creativity. It was a constant balance, and I believe I managed it thanks to slow living.
My compass shifting
When I went full-time, the whole balance of my life shifted: gone were my day job and the work I did relating to my political science degree, which had occupied the nerdy, academic side of my brain. My free time were no longer for creative work. I had much more space, time and energy for working on my business. Like earlier, I felt protective of my own creativity, and didn’t want it to get eaten up by my business. And I felt a little lost in my free time, not sure how I wanted to use it.
I started to notice small things changing. My slow living activities that earlier had been wrapped up together with my creative work drifted into my free time. I felt renewed interest for society, history and academia, now that I no longer had my government job. While earlier, being on social media on evenings and weekends had felt natural, I started to block Instagram and other apps on my phone outside of my work hours. I craved switching off from my creative work, which I had never really experienced before - I had just wanted more.
I saw three trends in what my creative compass was pointing towards.
More life, less lifestyle
This started with Instagram, but eventually bled into my whole creative work. While I was striving towards a slow and creative life, I was in pursuit of a lifestyle. I talked about it, wrote about it, thought about it as a lifestyle. This helped me move towards it, right alongside those who were inspired by the content I shared.
But now, it was no longer a dream, I was living it. And so, to talk about and portray something as a lifestyle started to feel off. It felt disingenuous to paint my life as a picturesque lifestyle. And showing it as a lifestyle also made me feel like I should live up to it, making me feel I was performing something that was just my life - and my free time.
In its place, I wanted life. The nuance, complexity, and the stories of being a human in this world. Still with the same values, living a life that is a little slower than the average. But less packaged up, more messy and real.
Simplifying
Before, my creativity, business, slow activities and free time were all wrapped up together. Now, I felt the urge to simplify, and let each part find its own place in my life. I realised that the most spacious, calm and slow way to run my business would be to simplify and refine it a bit. I no longer feel the need to track and share everything in my content, but can focus a little more on the core of what my business is about: supporting creatives.
Getting nerdy
With so much more space to focus on my creative work, and the quite nerdy and academic side of my brain not being occupied my day job, I’ve noticed an urge to dive ever deeper into my work. I want to learn even more about creativity, explore the depths of the creative process, and further develop my methods to best support creatives. I think of this as where my academic and creative selves meet.
A new balance emerging
Things are settling into a new balance. I’m no longer striving to live a slow and creative life: I am living that. Pursuing slow living has fulfilled its purpose - now it’s just life. And it’s my free time: going for long walks in the forest, reading, gardening.
My creativity has gotten its own space - little pockets of time during my week working on my novel. Right now, I don’t feel that my own creativity is being threatened by my business. Sure, sometimes I have to adjust my schedule and not do as much book work for a while, but mostly they exist in harmony alongside each other. Which means when I’m focusing on my business, I focus on being the best creative coach I can be.
I feel much calmer in my business. I want to peel back the layers, and focus on supporting creatives. A slow, calm and gentle approach underpins my whole philosophy of life and creativity, but I’m not very interested in talking about things like baking and give ideas for slow living activities. I will always be grateful for slow living, and what is has given me. And for those exploring it, my older content is there to dip into.
I’m of course going to keep sharing my creative journey and tell my own stories from it. But I want to be less of a lifestyle influencer, and more of the creative coach I am.
My new vision for my creative work and life
After a winter of checking in with my creative compass, a new vision for my creative work and life has emerged.
Being my own best version of a creative coach
I love my work as a creative coach. I want to go deeper into creativity and the creative process, understand it even more, and help people from that deep understanding.
I want to be the coach for creatives who share my values of a calm creative life. Through my content and offerings, I want to meet you, reader, and my customers and clients, where they are at. I want to show and guide how to create projects, be a creative online, and build a creative life - away from hustle culture and with intention and authenticity.
Having plenty of space for a writing life
Alongside my work as a coach, I want to have plenty of time in my work week for writing novels. This means I need my business to be strong and simple, and not one that fills 40 hours a week. As I keep developing and growing my business, this is something I keep in mind every step of the way. I make sure I’m building that space into my business.
Telling stories from my journey and life
Honesty and openness has always been important creative values for me, and they still are. While I am moving away from talking about and sharing a slow living lifestyle, I will still share plenty of behind the scenes and stories from my own creative journey. I will share the challenges I’m facing and how I’m working through them, and peeks into my every day life.
Living a calm, spacious and free life
My best life is one where the pace is gentle, where I have space for both inspired, focused moments, and for gazing out of the window with a cup of hot tea in my hands. A life that can hold both a day in the city, and a day in the forest. A life lived in harmony with nature, where I have the space to care for my health and relationships, go explore and experience the world, and cherish the small joys of a good book and a cuddly cat.
Check in with your creative compass
My creative vision has shifted and changed many times. It’s not something you arrive on once, and it will forever be that. As we grow and our lives change, so does the direction in our creative work. Having taken time to explore what my inner compass is pointing towards has given me a much, much clearer sense of where I’m going, what’s important to me, what kind of creative business I’m building and how I want to show up in my work.
I see the same for the creatives I work with, in my membership community and in my coaching. When we’re not in alignment with our creative direction, things feel off, not quite right, confusing and messy. You might be flailing a bit, going back and forth between ideas, feel stuck and unsure.
A big part of my work as a creative coach is to dive deep together with my clients and unearth what that inner compass is pointing towards. It’s always there, pointing somewhere, but we haven’t learned how to check in with it.
To help with this, I’m working on a course. It’s coming soon, arriving with April, and I call it The Creative’s Compass. If you crave a good check-in with your creative direction, I have just the thing for you.
Save this blog post on Pinterest
